


animals be crossing

by dragonbagel



Series: peter and mj, sittin in a tree [6]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Avengers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Trans Peter Parker, minor gore bc deadpool, not rly referenced in this but Just Know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonbagel/pseuds/dragonbagel
Summary: Peter isn’t answering his phone.Normally, MJ wouldn’t mind. He’s a busy guy, she gets it. But considering he’d been shot literally three days ago, she's allowed to be worried. At least, that’s what she tells herself.or: mj tries to track down her boyfriend. she should be entitled to financial compensation for all the bs she ends up having to deal with.
Relationships: Happy Hogan/May Parker (Spider-Man), Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: peter and mj, sittin in a tree [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1423327
Comments: 8
Kudos: 115





	animals be crossing

**Author's Note:**

> this idea just came to me while i was supposed to be asleep, so here’s some fluff during these trying times (i will try to update my other fic soon but im just not rly feelin it rn)

Peter isn’t answering his phone. 

Normally, MJ wouldn’t mind. He’s a busy guy, she gets it. But considering he’d been shot _literally three days ago_ , she's allowed to be worried. At least, that’s what she tells herself.

Maybe he’s just out on patrol. It’s Saturday, and overexerting himself until he inevitably gets tired or nearly fatally injured (again) is his usual weekend MO.

(The way that somehow, in his weird and miraculous Peter way, he’d managed to heal from a bullet wound overnight did little to assuage her anxiety.)

But that doesn’t change the fact that he typically still answers her texts while out Spider-Manning, despite her and May’s constant chiding about the dangers of texting and swinging. Sometimes he actually listens to their advice—a true rarity—and dictates a text to KAREN rather than sending a garbled one-handed message and crashing into a pole. 

(Peter denies it, but she’s seen the videos on YouTube. It’s hilarious, especially considering it was an attempt to respond to a sext she sent.)

(She didn’t tell May that part, but admittedly did hold it over Peter’s head for a hot minute.)

Next step: check Twitter to quell her embarrassing bout of nervousness. She navigates through the popular “Spidey Watch” accounts, all filled with slightly stalkerish photos and updates of Spider-Man’s whereabouts. It wasn’t ideal, especially when Peter’s enemies were looking to track him down. (Jesus Christ, her boyfriend has _enemies.)_

But apparently, nobody had seen him since yesterday. She goes into the Spider-Man tag just to make sure—saving a meme about his ass to tease him about later—but even amateur Spidey-Spotters hadn’t caught a glimpse of him.

Great. She’d stooped low enough to go through weird Spider-Man fan accounts, and still came up with nothing. Peter hadn’t returned her calls, or her mountain of (totally not uncalled for) texts. 

Guess she’s doing this the hard way.

* * *

”Hey! I thought we were a team! Are you really gonna make me shoot you? No, you insulted my dog, screw you!”

“Hey, dork!”

“Oh, sick, you got the new Borderlands skin? I’ve been saving up for it, but I’m trying not to spend too much actual money, so—“

“Ned!”

“Uh, one sec, someone’s calling me.”

MJ watches from the doorway with dead eyes as Ned fumbles to push his massive headphones down to his neck without taking his hands off the controller.

“Ned.”

“Hold on, I gotta finish this battle, I’m in the final five. I even beat out Thor, which, like, the fact that he even plays this game is so cool and—“

MJ snatches the controller out of Ned’s hands, and promptly runs his character off of the map.

“No fair!” Ned says, frowning.

MJ ignores him. “Is Peter here?”

Ned raises an eyebrow. “Does it look like he’s here?”

“I don’t know, maybe he’s buried under all these Legos.” She nudges a pile of the small bricks with her toe. 

“Careful, those are all sorted for when we build the rogue U-Wing!”

MJ sighs, moving to sit on the edge of Ned’s bed before realizing that it, too, is covered in Legos, and her ass can’t take that kind of pain. Never again.

“How’d you even get here?”

“Your mom let me in,” MJ says with a shrug.

“Huh. Do you think he’s out, y’know…” He presses his middle and ring fingers to his upturned palm.

MJ eyes the dorky-looking microphone protruding from the headset still resting around Ned’s neck. “Is that thing still on?”

“No,” Ned says, shaking his head and making the plastic rattle. “Because _someone_ killed me.”

“Yeah, well, this is important. Also, you look like you work at a call center.”

“I’ll have you know that these are the exact headphones that _Thor_ uses, so if that’s not cool, then—“

MJ cuts him off with a groan. “Okay, fine, forget I said anything about the headphones. Look, Peter’s not answering his phone, and he isn’t on patrol, and I’m just…”

Ned’s face splits into a grin. “Aw, you’re worried about him!”

“I’m not!” MJ splutters. “I didn’t say that!”

“I’m telling Peter!”

“If you do, I’ll tell him you’re playing as Captain America instead of Spider-Man on this stupid game,” MJ says, reveling in the way Ned’s face pales.

“You wouldn’t!” The betrayal in his voice makes MJ snort.

“I might.”

“Okay, okay, fine, you win.” Ned puts down the controller and holds his hands up in surrender. “But I don’t know where he is. Have you talked to May?”

Wow, MJ’s a dumbass. She’s gotta play it cool, though. “I’m heading there next. Had to make sure you weren’t having a secret sleepover or something.”

“Uh huh,” Ned says, failing at trying to subtly pick his controller back up. “Let me know if you, uh, find him.”

MJ takes that as her cue to leave, especially as Ned begins to slip his geeky headphones back on. “Yeah, yeah. Have fun playing Two Weeks, nerd.”

“For the love of god, please stop calling it that!”

* * *

May Parker is, quite possibly, the coolest person MJ has ever met.

She’s a badass single parent who somehow puts up with Peter’s bullshit on top of all her responsibilities at FEAST. She also has a fantastic sense of fashion, the crimson v-neck dress she’s currently wearing being case and point.

“Sorry you had to come all the way out here,” May says, leaning in towards the bathroom mirror to finish applying her killer eyeliner.

“It’s no problem, Ms. Parker,” MJ says, following May as she exits the bathroom and heads into the kitchen. “Got a hot date?”

May flushes, ruffling through the purse sitting on the counter instead of answering.

“Here,” she says, handing MJ two 20-dollar-bills. “I know getting to the Tower on the subway is a pain in the ass.”

MJ shakes her head, pushing the money back into May’s hand. “No, it’s okay. I can probably just call Happy to pick me up; I think he’s starting to like me.”

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure if he’s working tonight or—“

May is cut off by a knock at the door. “Sorry, just a sec.”

She opens the door a crack, not bothering to undo the latch.

“I thought you weren’t coming until seven.”

MJ may not have super-hearing, but if there’s one thing a born-and-raised New Yorker like May Parker can’t do, it’s whisper.

“I thought we agreed on six-thirty!”

“Did we?” May pauses, still obscuring the entrance. “Well, Michelle is here right now, so why don’t you go take a walk around the block.”

For a moment, nobody speaks. Then: “Hey, Jones!”

MJ wants to smack herself in the face. May actually does.

“Happy, I told you, we were keeping this on the DL,” May says, scowling as she undoes the latch and opens the door fully.

Lingo like DL? Super cool. The way all 275 pounds of Happy Hogan is sweaty and red as a tomato? Not so much.

He doesn’t respond to May, instead pulling a bouquet of flowers out of god-knows-where and holding them out to her. “Can I come in now?”

May blushes, taking them from him. “If you behave.”

Happy sighs, turning to MJ as May goes to find a vase. “Hey, kid. You’re not gonna, uh, tell Peter about this, right? It’s just, you heard May, she wants to keep this on the...what’d she say? LD?”

“It’s DL,” MJ deadpans. “And you just don’t want Peter to bug you about it.”

“You know what? Here.” He pulls his wallet out of his pants pocket, rifling through it and pulling out a 100-dollar-bill. “For a cab, and to keep your mouth shut.”

“Are you bribing me, Happy?”

“Yes.”

This time, MJ takes the money.

“Sounds like a deal.”

* * *

MJ doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to Avengers Tower. The marbled grandeur of the lobby, the constant stream of tourists and paparazzi constantly lurking about. The way the wickedly smart AI just wordlessly lets her through the security and to the private elevator, and the way the aforementioned tourists and paparazzi just stare.

She will also, most definitely, never ever in this lifetime, be used to seeing “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”—or whatever slogan campaign they’re blasting online these days—up close and personal. It’s not that she’s a fan, per se; to be honest, she finds them a bit overrated. Like, a dude walks around with a shield the size of a dinner plate and is more of an American hero than Susan B. Anthony or Marsha Johnson? Seriously?

But growing up watching someone on TV, watching her peers and family members practically worship the ground the (grossly male-dominated) Avengers walked on? It still made MJ feel out of place, intimidated. Insignificant.

That feeling had lessened somewhat in the year she’d been dating Peter. Not on his part, of course, because he still geeked out whenever he was at the Tower (even when, as she now knew from May, he stayed the weekend there at least once a month). No, it was because of the crazy bullshit that inevitably went on every time she stepped foot in the living area that made the Avengers feel oddly...human.

Today’s antics include the most bizarre game of Uno that MJ has ever seen in her life. At one end of a too-small table, Black Widow (whom MJ will willingly admit she has a small crush on) is seated far too stoically for someone playing cards. Beside her, Hawkeye is perched on top of a chair that looks dangerously close to tipping over. The third and final player is...a burn-victim in a gimp suit?

Oh god, was this a kink thing? She glances down at the table to make sure there aren’t any sex dice on it, and she honestlly might prefer that to the utter nightmare that she finds instead.

Every inch of the table’s surface is covered in an amalgamation of clutter: empty kombucha bottles, random pieces of shriveled-up sausage, safety scissors, a matching leather mask that MJ immediately averts her gaze from.

The cards are there too, though it looks like at least half the deck is in the hand of the mystery man (whom MJ is pointedly avoiding looking at.) The hand—equally as disfigured as his face—not holding his cards is idly “walking” up Clint’s leg with two fingers. Because...he only has two fingers; the rest are bloody stumps. He must have been putting on this show for quite some time, because there are what MJ can now see are droplets of red staining table near him. And staining the safety scissors. And leading to the weird objects that she had now come to the sickening conclusion are most definitely _not sausages_.

MJ clears her throat, if only to avoid vomiting. “Hey, I’m looking for—“

She doesn’t manage to finish her sentence before the weird finger masochist dude startles and pulls a gun at her, his other hand fanning his ridiculous amount of Uno cards in front of his face.

“Who are you and what do you want? I may only have two fingers right now, but I know how to use them.” The man pauses, cocking his head, then adds, “And not just in a sex way.”

Natasha groans and grabs the weapon from his hand, ejecting the clip and tossing it to the floor. “Would you quit that?”

Mr. Terrible-At-Uno shakes his head, reaching down and pulling out yet another gun to point at her. “She snuck up on us!”

Natasha disarms him again as Clint scoffs. “Even _I_ heard her coming.”

The guy who has now effectively sent MJ’s heart rate rocketing through the roof full-on _pouts_ at that. “For realsies?”

Natasha elbows him. “Do you have any more on you?”

“Well, there’s one, but you’re gonna have to ask _real_ nicely—“

Even MJ can’t help but snort at the yelp the creep lets out at the anything-but-gentle punch that Natasha aims at his arm.

Natasha turns to face MJ and smiles, and wow, have MJ’s legs always been jelly? “Hi Michelle. Sorry about this idiot.”

MJ has no clue what to say, so she just repeats what she had tried to say earlier before being so rudely (and terrifyingly) interrupted. “I’m looking for Peter.”

The strange dude—Wade, as he later introduces himself—gasps, flinging his Uno cards everywhere and raising his hands to his face. “You know Spidey?”

The excited expression on his face freezes for a moment, and he slowly leans towards Clint.

“Wait, does she know about you-know-what?” He’s somehow worse at whispering than May.

“Yes, idiot,” Clint says, putting his head in his hand with an exasperated sigh. “This is Peter’s girlfriend.”

Wade jumps to his feet, knocking over the table and scattering its contents. “Oh-em-gee, Petey has a girlfriend! I’m so so so sorry I almost killed you!”

Nobody seems surprised by Wade’s behavior, even when he starts singing “Peter has a girlfriend” on loop and skipping in a circle. 

Natasha turns to MJ with a sigh. “Just ignore him.”

MJ raises a brow. “Is he always like this.”

“No,” Clint says, grimacing as Wade decides that his choreography now needs to include jumping on the couch. “Sometimes he’s worse.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Natasha says. “You said you’re looking for Peter?”

MJ nods.

“Last I heard, he was working in the lab with Tony.”

“La, la, la, Spidey’s got a girlfriend, Spidey’s got a girlfriend!”

“I’m just gonna, uh, go,” MJ says, slowly backing away.

“Good call,” Natasha says before looking at Clint and jerking her head towards Wade. “Your turn.”

“But I did clean-up duty last time!” Clint whines.

“And I won at Uno. So,” she claps twice, “Chop chop.”

Clint glances at the floor, shuddering at the fingers now dyeing the white carpet. “Please don’t talk about chopping.”

“I think one of them rolled under the couch.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

* * *

MJ is pretty good at pretending not to hate things. It’s a skill she’s acquired over the years, especially once she started hanging out with Peter and Ned at the fancy magnet school she got into by acting like a science nerd when she, in fact, never plans to take another science class again after graduation.

Her hardest challenge is pretending not to hate Tony Stark.

She knows Peter adores him, idolizes him, thinks of him almost as a father figure. But the disdain for Stark is deep-seeded, festering since the first time she understood what she was watching when one of his missiles blew up civilians on the news. He was an arrogant asshole and, to some extent, still is. MJ can tell he tries to put up a front of good behavior when she’s around, but she can see right through him; she can see how he carefully chooses his words, the way he tip-toes around anything even remotely serious, the awkwardness in his posture when he tries to act like a host.

But she tries not to hate him, for Peter. Peter, who he’s fucked over more times than she can count. Peter, who is so, _so_ , good, and yet is shamed by a man-child over twice his age.

Stark may have given him a suit, but, though MJ will never say it, it came with a few too many strings attached.

But now, as she finds herself standing outside the tinted windows to Stark’s lab, she has to once again put on her ignoring-the-fact-that-this-man-is-a-literal-war-criminal-and-causes-90-percent-of-my-boyfriend’s-insecurites face. It’s not an easy feat.

“FRIDAY?” MJ says, instinctively looking up at the ceiling. “How do I get in there?”

“I will ask Boss for permission.”

“Okay, uh, thanks.”

After a moment, the AI speaks again, the sudden voice scaring the crap out of MJ.

“Boss says you can come in but to ‘make it quick’, because he is doing important work.”

“Of course he is,” MJ mutters, stepping forward as the door slides open.

She quickly scans over the lab, taking in the numerous coffee mugs, half-assembled Iron Man suits, and holographic screen. She doesn’t see Peter, but it’s possible he’s zoned out and buried in a project somewhere in the ridiculously large room. The place smells like grease, and a shitty ZZ Top song is playing. God, she hates men.

“Hey there, MJ,” Stark says, closing his projections and turning down the music with a swipe of his hand. “What can I do for you?”

“Michelle,” she corrects on instinct.

_Nice going, Jones. Not like you’re here asking for a favor._

“Right,” Stark says, drawing out the word. “I’m sure FRIDAY told you, but I’m working on a big project.”

“Yeah,” MJ says, forcing her tone to remain even. “I’m just looking for Peter. Natasha said he was here.”

Stark seems to be equally careful in his response, because it takes a moment. “He’s, uh, not actually here right now. He went up to his room a few hours ago.”

She can practically hear the “ _does it look like he’s here?”_ on the tip of his tongue.

“Guess I’ll get out of your hair then.”

Stark looks like he knows he should say some sort of pleasantry, but doesn’t know how. It’s okay; MJ doesn’t want to hear it anyways.

* * *

“Peter?” MJ knocks on his door for what feels like the 50th time. “Are you there?”

No reply. MJ’s just about ready to bash her head into the wall.

Luckily for both the drywall and MJ’s brain cells, FRIDAY interrupts. “It appears that Mr. Parker has his noise-cancelling headphones in.”

MJ frowns. “Is he having an episode?”

“He does not appear to be experiencing sensory overload.”

MJ lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Okay, well, can I go in then?”

“I have no programming stating otherwise.”

If it had been anyone other than a literal computer talking to her, MJ would have definitely had a snarky comment about how pretentious that sounded.

“Hey, Peter?” MJ says as she slowly opens the door.

But his room—cluttered and in disarray, as usual—looked empty. For real? Even the AI doesn’t know where he is?

“Only 800 bells? Seriously? That was a rare beetle! You know what, no, fuck you, Timmy.”

MJ looks up at the sound and...yep, that was her boyfriend sitting on the ceiling. He must be pretty into whatever the hell it is he’s doing up there, because he barely manages to catch the balled-up sock she throws at him.

“Whoa!” he says, dropping what looks like a bright yellow plastic rectangle as he grabs the sock, then shooting out a web at the last second to snag it before it hits the ground.

He flips down after it, headphones jangling from where they’re still plugged in. “Oh, hey MJ! When did you get here?”

He grins at her as he tosses the sock over his shoulder and into a laundry hamper.

MJ blinks. “Are you telling me I just touched your dirty sock?”

“I mean, to be fair, I didn’t ask you to, and you also made me almost drop my Switch, so.” He shrugs.

“I’ve been looking for you all day, asshole.”

Peter frowns. “Really? What time is it?”

“If you looked at your phone, you’d know.”

Peter blushes. “Oh, uh, oops.”

He shoots a web towards his bedside table, pulling his phone towards him and unlocking it. “Aww, you double-texted! You must’ve really missed me.”

MJ tries to channel all her energy into not turning an equally embarrassing shade of red. “No, I was just worried.”

“If you say so,” Peter says.

“What have you even been doing all day?”

Peter starts practically bouncing on his feet. “Mr. Stark got me a Switch so that I’d stay in bed while I healed, but jokes on him, this sucker’s portable!”

MJ simply stares. “Why are you like this?”

Peter shrugs, pressing a few buttons on the Switch and turning it around to show MJ. “Check it out, this is my island!”

MJ leans in, watching as Peter moves a miniature version of himself around through some digital flowers.

Then she jolts and grabs his wrist. “Wait,” she says.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asks, looking over at her in confusion.

“What,” she says slowly, moving her finger to point at the screen, “the _fuck_ is that?”

“That _monstrosity,”_ Peter makes a gagging noise, “is Zipper, and he came from hell to ruin my life.”

MJ glances between the horrifying yellow bunny and the sheer conviction in Peter’s eyes that ever-so-slowly turns into embarrassment. 

“I, uh, do kind of need you to let go of my hand, though. I need to collect more eggs for him.”

MJ groans. “I’m going home. It’s clear that I’ve been replaced by a video game.”

“I didn’t say that! When did I say that?” MJ chooses to be the bigger person and not point out the way his voice goes up an octave. “But, like, I really need to work on finding these eggs, so…”

“Whatever, nerd,” MJ says. God, she could use a drink after this. “Oh, by the way, I met Wade. He knows we’re dating.”

She pauses as she steps through the door. “Next time you don’t answer your phone, I’m telling him about our sex life.”

MJ has heard Peter break enough things to know that he definitely just snapped his Switch in half.

“Fuck!”

**Author's Note:**

> fuck zipper he can choke
> 
> also there’s no universe in which michelle would like tony stank and that’s a hill im willing to die on
> 
> pls leave a comment if you enjoyed! i am dead inside!


End file.
